


Confessions

by MidgetBanana



Series: Lavebull Things [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-23 01:28:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19140832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidgetBanana/pseuds/MidgetBanana
Summary: Suddenly, as if a switch was turned off in his head, this feeling that had no words in his native tongue stopped causing him fear. Not everything that he couldn’t comprehend or explain logically had to pose a danger. Some things people just weren’t meant to understand and it made them all the more special.





	Confessions

If there’d been a single point in time inwhich Bull realized how smitten he was with the elf, it would have to be when he’d seen him elbow deep in Venatori blood. That particular moment, he found himself unable to brush it off as he did with many others.

If it had been any other men, he’d think it a colossal waste of resources and mana but with the elf, he didn’t dare. To appear as frail as he does and be conscious enough to use it for his advantage, demanded some respect. But that was not why people fell on their swords at his orders. Bull had never seen the reason as clearly as he did in that moment.

There was no brute display of strength in holding the hand of a man who tried to maim you just an hour ago as he wept and wailed in pain, getting his leg amputated. There was no glory in comforting him. And there was definitely no sense in pouring mana in mending the wounds of a man that couldn’t offer any useful intel in return.

He’d seen time and again the world chewing naïve people like him and spitting them out less than they’d been. He didn’t know when he, himself began seeing a lump of flesh instead of a parent, a child or a spouse, just happened to get paid by the wrong people at the wrong time. He didn’t know exactly how it came to be but he knew it must’ve taken a significant amount of time and practice, and circumstances the elf was never exposed to. 

Perhaps Bull had been the ignorant one, mistaking compassion with naivete. It took an unprecedented amount of power to not only still your hand against an opponent but to pull him back on his feet for no reason other than it being a humane thing to do. No other pay off. No godly father figure keeping tabs on his actions to grand him a pleasant afterlife nor a material bounty to be gained from grateful relatives. Just because it is right, just because taking a life is a waste.

Bull had raised concerns on his trusting nature before. The elf had simply said there’s no finite amount of empathy entrusted to him, that it took nothing to spare a life, it took a lot more to take it. He’d said he’d rather die betrayed by someone who he trusted than live with his heart isolated in fear. His hands were honed to give life, deliver a child into the world, tend to the forest, feed his clan… not to kill senselessly as Bull’s were. Maybe that’s why with him, he felt grounded. Maybe it reminded him of a part of himself that he was made to lock away, and he envied it. Maybe he was in awe that he’d go the lengths that Bull couldn’t. To be raised without parents, without a set of religious codes to guide his actions like the Vashoth Bull had scorned and yet turn out so unfathomably different than them, to be touched by a demon -epitome of corruption- and walk away unscathed… He gave Bull hope. 

When he thought about his future, by the elf’s side, for the first time in his life he did not dream of bloodsoaked grandeur of battlefields and carnal pleasures. He thought of peace, of home, perhaps even family, all the things he’d been denied and never seeked out. Maybe those all added up on the pile of things he discovered each day he had the privilege of spending with him and made him unquestionably, inevitably fall in love. 

He did not tell him how he felt that day. Nor the day after. The words came to the tip of his tongue each night the elf woke up in pain as the mark on his hand grew more and more, reminding them that their time together was stolen. This was all a fantasy Bull escaped to, playing the role of a man he desired to be yet can never actually become.

The elf’s heart longed to where he belonged, with his people. Not for the life of a mercenary at Bull’s side or a figure of power on the throne of Inquisition. There were enough strings pulling him away with each new quest pushed on him every time he left his chamber without Bull adding to them with a weak confession.

He cursed the elf’s deities, forsaking him and leaving him to perish, after everything he’d endured on their behalf, the Inquisition for demanding from him the power of mark that had been consuming him with each use. But more than those he cursed himself for spending his life running away from magic, leaving him unable to do anything.

After the apostate Solas abandoned them and Dorian left looking for a way to help using the resources he’d have access to in Tevinter, there was no one that could offer any assistance safe from Vivienne, who agreed, albeit reluctantly, that the recorded knowledge on all things magical were severely limited this side of Thedas.

He should be spending his last months alive with his clan, where his heart ached for, not running the errands of an organization he’d done more than enough for. However he was denied even that as they flaunted him in a parade to fix their problems once again. Exalted Council, they called their little game.

At which point they both knew this was likely going to be the last journey Fey would ever take. Even then, Bull did not tell him how he felt. Saying it would’ve been accepting it, and accepting it would make the inevitable only that much harder to endure. Not letting anyone into his heart meant that he never had to deal with loss. He had no idea what would happen to himself after, he knew he didn’t handle intense emotions very well.

It all took place in the span of one day, where he had everything for a brief moment, and lost it.

As they travelled through the Darvaarad, fighting against his own kind, the elf reached his breaking point. They were about two chambers away from this supposed dragon when his legs gave out, he clutched his hand, clawing it, as a scream tore away from his lungs. This time, he didn’t seem to be able to get back on his feet. The green glow pulsing unnaturally and separately from its host had spread all the way to his shoulder. If Bull could cut it off right there and then, he would, without hesitation. Instead he did the only thing he was allowed to, falling down on his knees beside the elf and pulling him in a thigh embrace.  He ran his fingers through the sweat soaked hair while muttering words of encouragement. 

There were no watchwords in the real world where they could make it all stop, where they could move on to tending his pain and Bull would no longer have to push. He had to get up, he had to keep on fighting, and Bull had to make him do just that. He rocked the elf’s trembling body pressed on his chest, he spoke softly “We are so close, Kadan…”

The elf kept repeating between shallow breaths that it hurts too much, that he can’t do it.

“How many times have I heard you say that? You always pull through.” Bull smiled sadly, lying through his teeth. The elf shook his head buried in qunari’s shoulder, not quite able to form words yet. “You said whatever you read in that fucked up library made you believe Solas can get rid of that thing in your hand, didn’t you? We have to carry on--” Bull cut himself of saying, “You promised me. You promised me you’d show me the forest that comes alive… the ten year gathering where spirits celebrate amongst men.”

“You hate spirits.” he managed to voice, barely.

“Not with you by my side.”

Odd though it may have been to say, it wasn’t a lie. His childish fascination mirroring Solas whenever the topic came up filled Bull’s chest with a warm, fuzzy feeling. Even though he knew it was a world Bull had no part in, he wanted to experience it through the elf, if only a little. 

“And if…” the elf started weakly, trying to put his words together “If I’m wrong and--Solas… If he can’t…” He hissed in pain as the marked glowed with another pulse, “What then?”

The spirit boy would know what to say, Bull though, could only offer the grim truth. Perhaps some things Fey needed to hear from the man who loved him, “Then you can die,”

He squeezed shut his burning eyes and admitted, “I will do it if you ask me to. But before that you need to get up,”

He buried his face in elf’s hair, fighting back the shakiness on his tone, he needed to pull together. It wasn’t him who had the torturous magic in his hand, he wasn’t the one who had to fight through it “If you don’t, everything you’ve done will be for nothing. All the people you fought for, all the wounds you mended, everything you had to leave behind… One final battle and you can lay your head to rest, it will all be worth it--”

As he spoke, the elf’s breathing began to come a little bit more evenly. He was still grasping his cursed hand with the intention to rip it off but at least he seemed relatively calmer now. 

“I want to live.” he said between breaths, “I want to be a part of your life. Any way I--I can…”

“Of course.”

Suddenly, as if a switch was turned off in his head, this feeling that had no words in his native tongue stopped causing him fear. Not everything that he couldn’t comprehend or explain logically had to pose a danger. Some things people just weren’t meant to understand and it made them all the more special. They could lead to the most wonderful of adventures, this one he was lucky enough to be a part of. So he told the elf, without a moment’s hesitation “I love you. You’ll always be a part of my life.”

All his past excuses seemed so irrelevant. Earlier, when Cassandra had mentioned marriage, he joked it off almost immediately. The prospect had sounded too absurd to entertain if even for a second, he should’ve asked him then, if he’d want to spend his life with Bull. He should’ve told him how he felt when they’d embarked on this damned Council. No, before that, when he’d first realized that he was the man Bull wanted to be with. He should’ve lifted him in his arms right after he left the clinic, washing the Venatori’s blood off his hands, and told him how much he loved him. He should’ve been the one who’d slain the dragon and adorned his neck with all the teeth it had. 

Hiding his feelings, making light of what they had… all those he’d been told to make him strong only made him weaker. More of a weapon, maybe but less of a man. ‘ _ The’  _ Iron Bull was nothing but another elaborate lie, he could understand why they would want to deprive people of something so beautiful as intimacy, there was no way he could assume the mantle of a mere tool after having even the most fleeting taste of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are most welcome!


End file.
